As a former primary school teacher and principal, Mr Stephen Gniel, CEO of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), understands the support that is needed to bring out the best in every student.
Across the country, students and teachers will have returned to classrooms with the shared excitement, enthusiasm and apprehension that comes with starting a new school year. Tied up in that nervous rush of adrenaline is the promise of new friendships, the potential for growth and achievement, and the anticipation of the challenges that lie ahead.
In my current role and particularly as a former primary school teacher and principal, I’m passionate about education and creating the best learning environment for our young people. We want them to be curious, to be creative – to be problem solvers. And it is teachers who will make that happen by bringing the curriculum to life and inspiring our children to embark on a lifelong journey of learning.
Over recent weeks, teachers will have been getting to know their students with the goal of helping each and every one of them thrive. We understand what a complex and challenging job teaching can be, and our goal is to continue supporting teachers by providing the high-quality resources they need to bring out the best in every child.
With that in mind, ACARA has published some new and updated resources for teachers and schools to support the implementation of the Australian Curriculum on our dedicated website at v9.australiancurriculum.edu.au. Some of the key highlights include:
Student diversity
Every teacher wants to help their students reach their full potential, and to help them achieve this, a new course focusing on student diversity has been added to our Professional Learning Hub at learning.acara.edu.au.
This online course helps teachers plan their lessons for a range of learning abilities and interests, so they can get the best out of their students and includes templates and examples to guide teachers as they develop their lesson plans to address a student’s strengths and barriers to learning.
Learning progressions
Learning progressions are a useful teaching resource that allow teachers to understand what stage of development their students are at, regardless of age or year level. To support this, ACARA has published new diagrams for literacy and numeracy to show the relationship between English and Literacy and Mathematics and Numeracy. These progressions allow teachers to better target their teaching to the areas that require focus, supporting each student’s particular needs and allowing them to engage constructively with the curriculum.
We’ve also published an in-depth article to expand on this including detailed information to help teachers understand the Literacy and Numeracy capabilities.
Parent and carer information
We know how important it is for parents and carers to be actively involved in their child’s learning. To help them to be more engaged, we’ve updated our parent and carer resources, including our guides on what students learn during the first 11 years of school and how literacy and numeracy develops.
To give families from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds a better understanding, we’ve also provided translations in six different languages. These include Arabic, Chinese (traditional and simplified), Hindi, Punjabi and Vietnamese.
Updated information on My School
As well as supporting teachers and schools with bringing the curriculum to life in the classroom, we’re continuing to play our role in providing detailed, accessible, timely and meaningful school education performance information.
Just before school ended last year, ACARA updated the My School website – myschool.edu.au – with school level data including the 2024 NAPLAN results, attendance rates, enrolment data and much more.
My School provides a wider breadth of data in addition to NAPLAN, including key insights into school demographics, achievements and characteristics. It includes information about how many students and teachers are at each school, as well as individual results for around 10,000 schools across Australia.
We need to know how our schools are doing, but it is also important that this information is presented in a way that considers the individual circumstances of a school, especially its level of socio-educational advantage. That’s what only the My School website does, providing a more meaningful overview of a school’s value and quality. All this information provides a broader context and a fairer yardstick than NAPLAN results alone and recognises the important work of teachers and the vital impact they are having in the classroom.
I hope teachers across the country are as excited as I am about the year ahead. We know how much hard work our teaching professionals put in every day to encourage our young people to grow and learn and we want to continue to support them, shine a light on their incredibly valuable work and celebrate the positive impact they are having in our schools.
Follow ACARA on Facebook and LinkedIn and subscribe to its regular e-newsletter at www.acara.edu.au/news-and-media/subscribe-to-acara-update, for all the latest updates.
